Orac is in a mischievous mood, distracting the Liberator crew from their imminent peril with a game of Space Monopoly and pleading with them not to believe the evidence of the Liberator’s sensors all because there is a gap in his knowledge: chiefly what is in the middle of a black hole. Will he risk the lives of the crew to satisfy his thirst for information?

Can you spot the threat in this screen shot? Yes! It's the big black hole!

The Thaarn is a mythical, mystical presence in the legends of Cally’s people, the Auronar. So why is Cally hearing messages from him?

Could it be he’s real and is living in the centre of a black hole? And if so, why?

Orac.

He gets to see inside a black hole and gets out the other side. In this episode that’s something worth celebrating.

The crew are responsible for the deaths of Groff and the other slaves on the Thaarn's world.

The crew have a problem:

TARRANT: Orac, a small problem for you. What is the possiblity of a directional control fault arising on the Liberator without Zen knowing about it?
ORAC:The chances are that had the game continued as it should have done, I would have won control of the galaxy on a probability of ten thousand four hundred and fifty to one.
TARRANT: Orac, it was only a game.
DAYNA: Orac with delusions of grandeur, Zen unable to control the ship. I'd say we've a lot of little problems on our hands.

The Thaarn has a planet in the middle of a black hole. That’s a pretty impressive technological feat.

He’s also built some robots with teeth. Unfortunately they’re painted on teeth so quite how Vila sees them gnash I don’t know. The robot isn’t really very good, but it does glide nicely.

The Liberator crew play an electronic game that seems to be Space Monopoly.

Avon is back in his red leather costume, as seen in Weapon and several other episodes. It has lost the round section round the neck though.

Vila is in brown and orange tie up top with a dark brown section at the neckline. He wears this over a dark brown top and with brown cords.

Cally gets the best costume of the episode. She has a grey V-neck top that has a kind of tendril design across it in black velvet. She wears this with grey trousers and black boots.

Dayna is dressed in a blue sleeveless top with a band round the waist.

Tarrant has another Blake-inspired a two-tone green peasant top with green cords.

Groff is dressed like a Dickensian clerk in a green striped collarless shirt with black arms, underneath a black waistcoat and apron with a black sun visor.

All the slaves are dressed in brown or orange boiler suits.

There is only one choice this week- The Caliph. He’s dressed as The Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland. He has a big hat and cloak that swirls behind him as he walks. He wears white trousers with a bottle green jacket that has a massive star motif on the belt round his waist. He swaggers round the black hole base brandishing his Neuronic Whip like a gentleman twirling a cane. Utterly bizarre!

Vila takes a bottle sized swig of some red drink after surviving falling through the black hole.

We have a glimpse of the Liberator’s sick bay again this episode, but it’s rather different from last time we saw it. This time it’s a fairly small silver- grey room and the Resus-Capsule dominates the room: a large plastic tunnel with metal struts to support the covering with instruments to monitor brain functions.

The hull of the Liberator is said to have been constructed from Herculaniam, the strongest known metal in the universe.

In some excellent continuity, the Liberator’s defences are used again, to fend off the salvage people sent by The Thaarn.

This is one of the very few episodes of the show where the teleport isn’t used.

No teleport bracelets are lost this episode.

Orac is characterised in a way that he hadn’t been since Shadow in this episode. He’s devious, manipulative and rather sinister, especially his willingness to sacrifice the ship and its crew in order to fill a gap in his knowledge. It makes him far more interesting than his usual function in the stories to fill the gaps in the crews’ knowledge. It’s good to have him as the catalyst for a story rather than just a passive bystander spouting information.

There’s absolutely no hint of anything remotely romantic going on in this episode.

Among the guest cast for this episode is Terry Scully, who’d played the cowardly Fewsham in The Seeds of Death in 1968.

Marcus Powell who plays The Thaarn had been a prisoner in Destiny of the Daleks in 1979.

This episode tips towards the camp side of things due in part to the frankly bizarre choices of the costume designer.

Dawn of the Gods is a pretty wretched episode of Blake’s 7. It’s full of things that don’t make much sense- Avon trying to escape a black hole in a space suit, the robot that represents primal fear with painted on teeth that don’t gnash and the wholly bizarre set of characters we find in the middle of the black hole. Actually these probably would work a bit better if they were costumed in a vaguely sensible way, but Dee Robson decided to give them sub-Dickensian costumes working against their characters and the ethos of the show in general. June Hudson’s costumes may have their detractors, but at least they fitted the futuristic nature of the show. These costumes really don’t. Unfortunately there are worse to come.

Yet, despite this I found I enjoyed watching this episode a lot more than Volcano. For all its faults, it’s not dull. The first half of the episode as they head through he black hole and explore the strange place they find themselves in isn’t too bad. There’s some good characterisation and it’s got a few moments of stylish direction: the close up on Avon’s eyes as they go through the black hole is really rather good for Blake’s 7.

For an episode that’s ostensibly about Cally, this one doesn’t give Jan Chappell a great deal to do. She gets to do the glazed-possessed look into the camera a lot and get possessed by the Thaarn for a bit. It’s a shame really, as we’ve seen all this before in The Web and Shadow the previous two seasons. Even her nice bit of storytelling only lasts a minute or two. It’s a shame because Cally is one of the characters that offered a lot of potential, but sadly no-one seemed to know what to do with her half the time.